The Problem With Twilight

[tobi the good boy]

OH for the love of science/god/budah/ala/jesus i dont care what you follow can we just stop having twilight forums please, yes it has terrible writing, yes it is about sparkly faries, yes the characters are shallow, and its both a bad book and movie.

so i ask of you if you really hate twilight stop reanimating it, give it time and let the stupid fad die

 

[Radelaide]

Twilight insults me as a female because the book pretty much shoves the message of being a spine-less, stupid Mary Sue who should wait for my handsome, strong man to come save me. It's so very cliché fifties.

Not to mention that the girls who read this dribble without my well-experienced sense of cynicism are pretty much like Bella. Some impressionable girl who gets taken advantage of and is convinced it's a good thing! I've been told that I don't understand the love that Bella and Edward share because I haven't read the books! Let the record show that I've read the books... TWICE! and I don't understand how Bella immediately falls in love, figured out her boyfriend is a vampire and then isn't committed to a mental facility when she realises that all this shit is real. The girl falls over herself to get to Edward, completely ignoring all his flaws like the "I like climbing through your window at night and pretty much violate you by watching you sleep without your permission", taking them as positive and romantic gestures. If my boyfriend did that, I would promptly hit him in the face.

Don't even get me started on Jacob. I pretty much don't believe that this could be real for either sex. He suffers from the same flaws Mary Sue up there suffers from, "OMG TRUE LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT!!"

The story then continues to push some out-dated morals on the audience and makes "purity" (see: virginity) as this sacred thing. Yeah, virginity is awesome and stuff, but it's really just a piece of skin over a hole.

Twilight is this miserable, poorly written, distasteful wet dream from a bored housewife, and has pretty much ruined a generation of girls because they're silly enough to believe that Edward exists.

 

[putowtin]

Good read, but the problem with Twilight can be summed up in two words=

It sucked!

 

[TIMBAP_TMC]

I read the twilight books, and so far have watched all of the movies. The books were easy reads, and as many have said, high school level writing. Nothing spectacular, nothing absolutely addicting. Upon watching the first movie, the acting seemed poor to me and the only scene that ever had any serious sense to it was the scene Edward removes himself from his car, saving Bella from a bunch of thugs in some back alley. At least you could get some kind of 'creepy' feel in that scene, due to Edward's expression. New moon was only fascinating to me due to the computerized wolves. I enjoy wolves in general, so that was the only portion of New moon that was worth watching. Now for Eclipse, as this article displays the scene in the mountains with the verbal fighting between Edward and Jacob, and Bella being unconscious, i think this sends a bad message. In the books, as well as in the movies, Bella is of course female and made out to be some kind of helpless klutz.

It's as though she can't make choices for herself, and Edward and Jacob are attempting to make the decision for her. Stephanie Meyer portrayed Jacob, in my opinion, as a better option for her. The cold that happens in the mountain scene shows that Jacob, with his body heat, was able to save Bella more than Edward could. Plus, in the movies and the books it is explained that the wolves hold some sort of grudge against the vampires. Or a strong dislike, therefore a treaty was made between the wolves and Cullens, and through the movies it appears other vampires. So therefore, i believe Bella would have been much safer in the hands of Jacob. But instead, she chooses Edward - the icicle, who drags her into danger.

So, i do disagree with the fact that Bella, as a girl, is portrayed as a vulnerable character. Women aren't that terribly clumsy, or helpless. Plus, Bella makes some pretty wrong choices in my opinion and i agree that Edward and Jacob should have worked better in the situation, made something work for the two of them, allowed Bella to make a decision for herself, etc.

 

[camazotz]

The only concern I can see over the views you are presenting, and specifically over the suggestion that this movie might define or influence behavior in young women, is that it seems to be the same error that conventional critics and the media in general makes constantly toward the movies and games so prevalent in our gamer/nerd culture. Suggesting that the women who enjoy Twilight will be inclined to develop anti-feminist, submissive and/or powerless roles against stalker/domineering males sounds very close (in my mind) the popular assertion that if I love to play Modern Warfare 2 then I must either be a gun nut, prone to violence in real life, or otherwise am easily influenced in some way for the worse. We know the people who make such assertions about our gamer culture are full of it, because we know that we, as people, are not so shallow, desperate for guidance and malleable that playing a violent game or watching a violent movie will otherwise change our very nature as people....so why are we assuming that the average Twilight fan is so gullible?

comparing this to the influence of violent media is inaccurate. consider instead how many male geeks have plunged headlong into doomed, unhealthy relationships with clearly damaged goods since Annie Hall introduced the concept of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. how many times have young male geeks done reenactments of The Offspring's "Self Esteem" in pursuit of a wholly fictional ideal mate archetype? i've seen it more than a few times, and now socially awkward females have their own mentally unstable fictional ideal who happens to have all the qualities of an abusive douchebag to pursue. wheee!

My only point was that people who relate to these films already have these problems as an issue in real life, and that film does not provide them, though it might enforce them. My secondary point was that I don't know any Twilight fans I would consider gullible, anymore so than I know video game fans who are gullible in a similar manner. In fact, as I mentioned, the only Twilight fans I know of are all very stable, intelligent women in their mid to late 20's, and a couple in their 40's. They love these movies...but I know they are enjoying it for the escapism, which to their demographic and generation takes on the curious form of this film (oddly enough no space marines or predator aliens in sight).

I do think that we are parsing out behavior tropes very finely here to suggest that the average woman (or man) can not tell when a film is depicting a bad model of a relationship, such that they confuse it with reality in their own life. I would agree, however, that such people already have problems and they find representative examples of those problems to obsess upon in film. Just like gamers as a whole are not violent, but a minority of violent people find the prospect of violence depicted in games to be something they can latch on to. To go to your Manic Pixie Girl example, for this trope to have power it would need to be able to capture and affect my own personal interests in women...and that trope most definitely does not! In fact, my experience has always been, be it myself or with friends, that we don't find film to tell us what to screw ourselves up questing for, but rather we find films that tell us what we already think we know.

At a certain level, I think that many people need a victim to target. I just hate to see gamers targeting women who like Twilight on the holy-of-holy pretense that they clearly can't think for themselves and so the movie is going to brainwash them. It's rubbish, and its not even scientific in any sort of capacity. Plus, there have been and will be many more films that exhibit these same messages and terrible relationshop stereotypes that do not have vampires or werewolves in them, and we won't fret over those chick flicks because they're off our radar. The bad relationship message of these films is not new...it's old; very very old.

I really hate to sound like I'm defending Twilight or its fans. I just think we're selling its fans short here on flimsy grounds. As a member of a hobby that is regularly regarded as too incompetent by the masses to get out of mom's basement, I feel there's a real irony in lumping Twilight fans in to the same broad, sweeping category....that's all. And now, I am going to bow out of this, because despite my belief that we're commiting a logical fallacy here, I do not under any circumstances want to be seen acting as some sort of defender of the Twilight franchise or its munchkin tween fandom....!

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Overly complex analysis, I think. Supernaturally perfect male protagonist who makes the ordinary, nondescript, plain-Jane female lead the center of his entire world? It's just shallow emotion "porn" for girls and women, and it's about as artistically valid as regular porn.

I don't begrudge women their Twilight. I think it's stupid, and I appreciate a gal who doesn't succumb - much as she likely appreciates the fact that I don't watch a lot of porn.

 

[allyhewitt]

it's refreshing to hear someone say how much they hate twilight who has actually seen it and checked the books a bit rather than ranting on cos their mate barry had seen a trailer and thought edward was gay. i mean i personally think it's a pile of poo poo pancakes but it still doesn't stop the fact that people do and will go and see this, and us ranting about it, won't make a damn difference.

 

[Chrissyluky]

Remember these important steps girls.
If he isn't paying attention to you, cut yourself and threaten suicide. Now that you have his attention force him to marry you because entrapment and early marriages are great. Especially when it's a 3 week relationship.